Costa Book Award

Margaret Drabble was a bright young star with five novels to her name in 1971, when she was talked into joining her old friend JB Priestley on the judging panel for a new book prize. "Jack told me that I should spend the fee (which came in wine) by choosing some very nice half-bottles to drink by myself, which I did," she recalls.

The cover of Sebastian Barry's latest novel, Days Without End, has a rather beautiful image showing a rainbow of colours emerging in the mist as sunlight strikes a high waterfall.  Read more

It's fairly safe to say that few people expected Nathan Filer - a former mental health nurse and author of one novel, The Shock of the Fall - to win the Costa Book of the Year Award. Not because he doesn't deserve it, but because some of his competitors were such known quantities.  Read more

As Hilary Mantel carries off the Costa to add to her second Booker win, Sameer Rahim in the Telegraph comments: 'The richness of its language and psychological penetration cannot hide the fact that Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies can be read as posh Philippa Gregory.'